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If we had to ascertain the nature of body and the place it
holds in the universe, surely we should take some sample of body,
say stone, and examine into what constituents it may be divided.
There would be what we think of as the substrate of stone, its
quantity- in this case, a magnitude; its quality- for example,
the colour of stone. As with stone, so with every other body: we
should see that in this thing, body, there are three
distinguishable characteristics- the pseudo-substance, the
quantity, the quality- though they all make one and are only
logically trisected, the three being found to constitute the unit
thing, body. If motion were equally inherent in its constitution,
we should include this as well, and the four would form a unity,
the single body depending upon them all for its unity and
characteristic nature.
The same method must be applied in examining the Intellectual
Substance and the genera and first-principles of the Intellectual
sphere.
But we must begin by subtracting what is peculiar to body, its
coming-to-be, its sensible nature, its magnitude- that is to say,
the characteristics which produce isolation and mutual
separation. It is an Intellectual Being we have to consider, an
Authentic Existent, possessed of a unity surpassing that of any
sensible thing.
Now the wonder comes how a unity of this type can be many as well
as one. In the case of body it was easy to concede
unity-with-plurality; the one body is divisible to infinity; its
colour is a different thing from its shape, since in fact they
are separated. But if we take Soul, single, continuous, without
extension, of the highest simplicity- as the first effort of the
mind makes manifest- how can we expect to find multiplicity here
too? We believed that the division of the living being into body
and soul was final: body indeed was manifold, composite,
diversified; but in soul we imagined we had found a simplex, and
boldly made a halt, supposing that we had come to the limit of
our course.
Let us examine this soul, presented to us from the Intellectual
realm as body from the Sensible. How is its unity a plurality?
How is its plurality a unity? Clearly its unity is not that of a
composite formed from diverse elements, but that of a single
nature comprising a plurality.
This problem attacked and solved, the truth about the genera
comprised in Being will thereby, as we asserted, be elucidated
also.
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